Mixbook - Pros and Cons

Pros of Mixbook:

-Free!

-Teachers receive an educational discount on printed books

-Collaborative - invite by other authors by email to modify book (I made one gmail account that everyone used and I typed in the password for them)

-web based so students could work from home

-I could easily check student progress from home and make notes to discuss with students, or design mini lessons to cover a concept they did not understand

-Students can view the work of their classmates

-uploading photos was easy, with multiple choices of where you can get photos from (computer, flickr, picasa..)

-easy to use - literally everyone was able to use the sites basic features with minimal instruction. They enjoyed showing their new discoveries about the features with their classmates.

-allows for creativity. Layouts are easily modifiable. Adding and subtracting photo or text boxes is easy

-can choose from a variety of book sizes and shapes

-can put the book on your blog or wiki to share with families at home

-lots of backgrounds, layouts and ‘stickers’ to choose from

-students publish their own book that looks professional

-families can order a copy online if they wish once book is published

-students loved making the book!


Cons

-no history feature, so it is impossible to know who contributed what or if someone decides to modify another student’s page it would be possible.

-need email to become a collaborator (author). I suppose you could use the gmail+ method to create accounts for students who do not have email.

-occasionally does not save work (because I had everyone working off the same account, perhaps?)

-students had some difficulties with changing text size. As soon as they clicked out of the text box the size would revert to the original. Frustrating if you are trying to fit things on a page and need to make the font smaller.

-book seems very small online even using the full screen function to view the book. This causes students to type their work in very large font (usually over 14 font), which may not be appropriate for a printed book, but necessary to be readable online

-if students decided to change the layout after they had begun typing and putting pictures in, could cause parts of the page to disappear. Layout needs to be carefully planned and not changed once students have begun making their page.

-expensive to buy a printed book (exchange rate, shipping and handling from US to Canada)